An Analysis of Twitter Responses to the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

Abstract

Previous research has shown that online social networks can provide valuable insights regarding collective human responses to extreme natural events, such as earthquakes. Most previous studies focused on one large earthquake, while the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes involved two significant earthquakes occurring within a short period of time (a M6.4 foreshock on July 4 and a M7.1 mainshock on July 5 in southern California). These earthquakes were the first time in more than a decade that the southern California region, with an estimated population of 15 million, felt light to moderate shaking over an extended period of time. This valuable opportunity allows us to study how people respond dynamically to such sequences of extreme events. We collected 510,579 tweets about the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes to answer the following research questions: (1) Which Twitter accounts were the major players? Did they behave differently and get different responses? (2) How did the publics' response change during these sequential earthquakes? and (3) Which earthquake-related rumors were disseminated on Twitter during the earthquake sequence, by whom, and at what time?

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